“The MacBook has served me well for five years but it’s on its last legs. It’s starting to develop some little irregularities that together tell me it is not much longer for this world,” James Kendrick writes for ZDNet. “After careful consideration I pulled the trigger on a new 13-inch MacBook Air.”

“It will be my primary computer at the desk, yet be able to go mobile if I want. I will migrate all my stuff from the old MacBook to the new Air as soon as it arrives in a few days and be up and running as before,” Kendrick writes. “I have always found the Mac to be great with video work and that’s pushed me toward the MacBook Air over other alternatives. One of those new MacBook Pros with Retina Display would have been ideal but I couldn’t get over the sticker shock to buy one.”

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29 Comments

Quit complaining about price. In the 90’s you were paying close to $2000 for junk. Macs are fine machines. You get what you pay for, and I happen to think their prices are reasonable. Stop comparing Apple to dollar store equivalent competitors like Dell and HP.

You might want to get ready and be prepared. They don’t last forever. It’s probably ready to go if you’re the real mobile type.

I’m not and my 17″ MBP probably moved off my desk once once or twice a year. Mine went to sleep one night last fall and wouldn’t wake up the next morning. It didn’t quite make to it six years and a half years as the motherboard died with notice. Because of the expense I decided not to fix it or replace the MBP with a new one.

Well that’s obviously not true, if you were being serious. At my stuffy Fortune 500 company, there are thousands of employees who use backpacks daily. I’m sure other companies are the same way. And I always use a backpack when I travel, frees up your hands.

I’m not sure his choice is really a good one to work with video.
The hard drive selection is to small. The Macbook Air doesn’t have a dedicated video card. So it seems to be a weak choice for a computer to be used for video editing unless those videos are really small and low resolution. The Air is a great choice for someone on the go to make presentations on. I think he would have been better off with a 27″ iMac with a 3TB fusion drive for video editing. Big storage, dedicated video card, 8gigs of ram or more, and a big display to work with. To me this makes much more sense for a video editing machine then a Macbook Air.

Precisely, thank you. Some idiot fanboi will no doubt disagree thinking that the functionality and performance of a high-end desktop and a puny MBA are insignificant. As if the Apple logo alone has some magical powers that transcends hardware specifications.

I don’t understand the “sticker shock” remark. I just bought a 13″ MBP with retina display. It was only $200 more than a similarly equipped Air. But, with the Pro I got a faster processor and a better display. If this guy keeps his computers as long as he indicates, the “savings” between the Air and the Pro = false economy.

I really like my Air, especially for traveling. But it doesn’t have the horsepower and storage I need for some of my bigger projects (simulations and numerics), so I picked up a new iMac. On the road, Back-to-My-Mac gives me access to the power when needed, and I don’t have to carry a back-brace to get on the plane. It’s so nice having the *appropriate* tools for the different tasks…

Screw not having an optical drive, especially with DRM video file restrictions on projector use. iTunes, as far as I’ve been able to tell, is not required nor feels any obligation to include a disclaimer about what video files are incompatible with projectors due to DRM protection. It’s the one area, for me, in which Apple has done an absolutely terrible job of customer education and service.